


Parenting

by adiwriting



Series: Hearing Verse [32]
Category: Glee
Genre: Deaf Blaine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 14:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3414797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adiwriting/pseuds/adiwriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bill and Gloria Anderson never expected to have a Deaf child. But when Blaine was born and the doctor told them he was Deaf, they had to come to terms with what that meant. It takes Bill much longer than Gloria. Part of the Hearing!Verse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenting

“Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, I need to inform you that your son did not pass the newborn screening test,” the doctor says to them, as they are going through all of the discharge information so that they can be ready to leave later on this afternoon.

“What?” she asks, feeling like the wind just got knocked out of her.

“Are you telling us that Blaine is deaf?” Bill asks, his voice as panicked as she feels.

“There are a number of reasons that kids can fail hearing screenings, many of them harmless,” the doctor explains. “But you’ll want to make a follow up appointment to be sure. I’ve included the contact information for the pediatric audiologist we usually recommend.”

The doctor hands them the rest of their paperwork, but they are both too shocked to to say anything.

****

“Do the test again,” Bill says for the third time, while Gloria sits in the chair, holding Blaine tightly to her chest as she cries.

“Mr. Anderson, I understand that this is difficult news to hear,” the audiologist says. “But the test results are conclusive. Your son has a profound hearing loss.”

“So he’s deaf?” Bill says it like it’s a dirty word. “You’re saying my son will never hear?”

“There are amplification options that I would like to pursue which might help your son gain more access to sound so that he can lead a more normal life.”

At the word normal, Gloria can’t help but let out a new sob. She hadn’t planned on this. No mother plans on their child being born anything but perfect.

****

“Mrs. Anderson, if you want your son to have the best chance at developing language, he has to wear his hearing aids every day,” Amelia, their early intervention specialist, tells her.

“He doesn’t like them,” she explains. “He’s always pulling them out.”

“I understand, but it’s our job to continue to put them back in and encourage him not to play with them. It’s essential to Blaine’s learning that he has as much access to sound as possible,” Amelia explains.

“I still don’t understand why we aren’t learning sign language,” she asks, causing Bill to roll his eyes.

“We’ve talked about this, Gloria,” he says. “The doctor said if he learns sign language, he’ll never learn to talk.”

“He can’t hear,” she argues. “How is he ever going to learn to talk?”

“That’s what the speech therapist is for,” Amelia says. “If you want to learn to sign and use it in your house, that’s fine. It’s your choice. But if you want him to be able to succeed in a mainstream school, the oral approach is his best option. The last thing you want is for all of Blaine’s interactions with others to have to be through an interpreter.”

Gloria’s sure that she’s right. It’s what countless other specialists have told them — that it’s entirely their choice, but oralism is the best approach. Gloria isn’t an expert. She likes to think she knows Blaine better than anyone else in the world, but how much can she really know about a son who is two years old and has never even heard the sound of her own voice? She just wants to do whatever she can to help him succeed in the world. She’d do anything to help him never have to feel isolated.

****

“I think we all need to agree that Blaine hasn’t benefited from an oral only approach. I think we need to seriously consider introducing him to a manual communication mode, even if it’s only to assist the speech,” Blaine’s resource room teacher, Maya Johnson, suggests as they all sit in on an IEP meeting.

“No,” Bill says, not even entertaining the idea.

Gloria understands where he’s coming from. For years all they’ve been hearing from professionals is how superior the oral approach is. They’ve been told that sign language is a last resort. Something they should only switch to after trying everything else. To hear that the IEP team wants to switch over to using sign sounds a lot like they are giving up on Blaine, and he’s only halfway through kindergarten.

However, she can’t deny the test results that have come back on Blaine. He’s made no progress in his language development in the last six months, and when you compare him to his peers, he’s significantly far behind.

“Blaine’s language skills are at a 3 year old level. If we don’t intervene now and come up with a plan that works, he’s only going to get further behind,” Maria Muller, Blaine’s general education teacher, says. 

“I knew you would all do this,” Bill yells, pounding on the table. “Because you can’t do your jobs right and teach Blaine, suddenly the only option is ASL. No. I’m not letting you pawn off your responsibility to my son by hiring an interpreter.”

He storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him, causing Gloria to flinch.

“Perhaps we need a few more days to think about this?” she suggests.

“Every day that boy goes without proper interventions, he falls at least a week father behind his peers,” Maya says. “I suggest you and your husband seriously talk about what is best for Blaine.”

****

“I just want him to be normal. To be able to go to school and have friends. To be able to go to college,” Bill cries on her shoulder the day Blaine comes home from speech therapy talking about how he’s met a new friend that uses his hands to talk. The day Blaine comes home and tells them that he hates them for putting him in mainstream school instead of a Deaf school.

To the untrained ear, Blaine’s entire tirade would have been unintelligible. It’s been 6 years of intensive therapies, and still Blaine’s speech is barely understandable. But they aren’t untrained, and they understood every word Blaine had said. He hates them. She can’t even stop and applaud the kind of language it takes to string together whole sentences like he had, because she’s so stuck on the words he’d said:

I hate you.

“Maybe we need to accept that he’s never going to be normal,” Gloria says, unable to stop her own tears as well.

“Doesn’t he see that this is the best plan of action?” Bill says. “I know it would be so much easier to sign with him. But then what? Is he really going to spend his entire life having to find an interpreter to translate everything he says? If we can just get his speech a little more clear…”

****

Gloria shows up at Wilder Elementary School to pick Blaine up. Usually, he rides the bus home. There’s enough time for him to come home and eat a snack before they have to head out to speech therapy, but today she’s decided to pick him up instead. She wants to speak to Maya Johnson and she doesn’t want her husband finding out that she’s done so.

“Mama,” Blaine says, smiling up at her when she walks into Mrs. Johnson’s small closet of a classroom, where the school has decided is most appropriate to stick her son for hours at a time while he receives his services outside of the general education classroom. There isn’t even a window, but apparently when your kid has a low-incidence disability, the school isn’t terribly concerned about things like windows.

“Mrs. Anderson,” Maya says with a surprised smile. “Blaine didn’t tell me that you were coming to pick him up.”

“Last minute changes,” she says. “Is there any way we could talk for a few minutes?”

“Of course,” Maya says, quickly pulling a book off of the shelf and handing it to Blaine. “Read this,” she explains to him, repeating herself a few times before Blaine understands her directions.

Once Blaine is distracted, Maya pulls her out into the quiet hallway so that they can have some privacy without Blaine looking in. He’s notorious for that. The mixture of him being so quiet and his genuine lack of pragmatics, means that he always manages to lipread the wrong thing at the wrong time.

“What can I help you with?” Maya asks, kindly. She’s always been the most understanding of all the people that work with Blaine. She’s certainly the most patient with him, which Gloria appreciates.

“If I wanted to learn sign, to help Blaine, what would I do?” she asks, nervously.

The smile on Maya’s face lights up all of Times Square.

****

MAMA, HUNGRY, Blaine signs to her as he plays with Sebastian in the living room. It’s the only friend Blaine’s ever had that he actually plays with. Every other neighborhood kid who’s ever come over, Blaine has simply played around them, rather than with them.

I’LL COOK SOMETHING, she signs back.

“So you’re going to sign now?” Bill asks from his spot at the kitchen table, behind the newspaper.

“He needs a way to communicate easily,” she explains, not needing to tell Bill how heartbreaking it is to go through day to day life without being able to truly connect with her own son. Bill feels that pain with her. He’s cried more than enough times for her to know that. They simply have different opinions on how to handle things.

“So I’m going to be the bad guy in this,” he says, sighing like he’s resigned himself to his fate.

“You don’t have to be,” she says as she begins to pull out the ingredients to make lunch for the boys. 

“He’s still mainstreamed. Those kids will still talk to him in school. If he doesn’t practice his English at home, what makes you think he’s going to be fluent?” Bill asks. 

“I don’t know,” she says, honestly. “I just know that what we’ve been doing isn’t working. You saw his test scores. He’s gotten worse.”

“And you think that sign language is the solution? He was doing so well in the listening and spoken language preschool. These elementary school teachers just aren’t doing their job. He can learn to talk. He doesn’t need sign; you know the audiologist believes that should only be a last resort,” Bill argues.

“Yes, I know. But I also know that the audiologist has made a small fortune off of all the hearing aids we’ve bought, so it benefits him that we continue to believe that,” she says.

“So you think he’s lying to us?”

“I’m just saying, I’m not sure we were ever presented all of the options for Blaine like we should have been. Look at Sebastian. He goes to Dalton and signs in all of his classes, but he still has clear speech. Blaine’s years behind Sebastian and Blaine’s a year older than him.”

“Yes,” Bill says, finally folding his paper so that she can see his face. “And he lives at school 5 nights a week. Is that really want you want for our family? To only see our son on the weekends?”

“Of course not,” she says.

Bill holds out his hands as if to say: well there you go. Gloria isn’t convinced, but she bites her tongue. She knows that Bill just wants the best for Blaine, but she doesn’t know how to convince him that Blaine can still live the life they have dreamed for him if he uses sign.

****

“You approved a change in his IEP without me? Were you ever going to tell me this?” Bill yells at Gloria while Blaine continues to watch TV, completely unaware of his parents arguing behind him.

“You would never have agreed to it,” Gloria says, crossing her arms defensively. She’s sick of always arguing with Bill because of Blaine.

“Screw this,” he says, throwing his arms up in frustration. “He doesn’t even need special education services anymore. All that they’ve ever done for him is hold him back. We are switching him to a 504 plan, getting an FM system and that’s it. This is just like when we took the training wheels off of his bike. He’ll get used to it and be better for it.”

“You can’t remove his services,” she yells, outraged. 

“Why not? You changed his services without me. Apparently you only need one parent to agree,” he argues. “I’m sure the school won’t mind one less kid in special ed. You know how expensive Blaine is to educate? They’ll be overjoyed to mainstream him.”

“He’ll fail,” she says, praying he isn’t serious.

Blaine can’t possibly handle being put into a general education classroom full-time. He struggles with the art and gym classes he’s already in. The only class he’s had any success in so far is his music class — which is still a mystery to all of them how that’s the class he excels at because he can’t hear the music.

“You don’t know that,” Bill says. “Maybe the only reason he’s been failing is because we don’t set high enough expectations for him. Am I the only one still fighting for him to have a normal life?”

“You think I’m not fighting for my kid?” she says, starting to cry. How dare he?

“I want him to be happy,” she says. “I want him to be able to have friends. To be able to communicate without being laughed at. You and I are the only two people in this world who understand him when he talks. Even his speech therapist doesn’t understand him.”

MAMA SAD? Blaine signs, standing up to come and give her a hug. She hadn’t realized he’d turned around and has no idea how long he’s been watching the two of them fight.

IT’S OKAY, she signs back, causing Bill to groan in annoyance.

Bill kneels beside Blaine and pulls him away from her to look at him.

“You need to use your voice,” Bill says.

“Stop it,” she says, but she’s ignored.

“You will never get better if you don’t practice. I don’t want to see you using sign language anymore. Do you understand me?”

Blaine nods, starting to cry and Gloria’s heart breaks.

“What did I just say?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Blaine says, his voice dropping several of the consonants so that, to anyone else, it would have been unintelligible.

“Good, now go upstairs and play. Your mother and I need to talk.”

Blaine gives her the saddest look when he walks past her and Gloria can’t help but feel like she’s failed him, somehow.

“What do you think that does to his self-esteem?” She asks, her voice laced with venom.

“What do you think it does to his self-esteem that his own mother doesn’t think he’s capable of surviving in a mainstream classroom?” Bill counters.

“If you cancel his services, he’s never going to get to college. We’ll be lucky if he even graduates high school,” she says.

“Oh, his chances at college went out the window the second you let his teacher start signing to him,” he says. 

“He can still go to college!” she yells. “He can get an interpreter—” Bill scoffs at that, but she continues on. “He can go to Gallaudet then. The entire campus signs, he’ll be fine.”

“You’re damn right he’s going to be fine,” Bill says, and she’s never heard him sound so dangerous. “I’m done with this crap, Gloria. I let it slide the past two years because I figured it was harmless. I was still talking to him at home and he was getting oral education at school, but that was all a lie. You lied to me! How long has his teacher been signing with him?”

“Bill,” she pleads with him. She doesn’t want to fight anymore, not when he’s so angry and bound to say something he’ll regret. 

“How long?” he asks again, his voice shaking.

“Two years,” she whispers. 

“Two years?!”

“He’s happy,” she cries, trying to make him see how justified she had been. “Haven’t you noticed how his test scores have improved? How he’s coming home happy?”

“You pull something like this again, and I will divorce you. I will take you to court over custody of our son.”

“You wouldn’t,” she says, but she can tell by the dangerous look in his eye that he just might.

“I think you know by now that there is not a single thing I wouldn’t do for that boy. If that makes me the bad guy in this, then so be it. Don’t you dare let me see you signing with Blaine again. Not if you want to continue to live in this house,” he says.

She’s read all the statistics about how having a kid with a disability can tear a family apart… she just never realized it could happen to them.

****

When Gloria opens the door of her small, apartment, it’s to find Bill on her doorstep, visibly upset.

“What’s wrong? Where’s Blaine?” She asks, immediately going into panic mode. It’s been six months since the court granted Bill temporary sole-custody while they wait for a court date, and every day she grows more and more worried about her son.

“He’s at home with Cooper,” Bill says, his voice shaking. “Can I come in?”

“No,” Gloria says, willing herself to stand firm.

“Gloria—“ he starts to yell, before stopping himself. “I’m sorry. I was angry and upset before.”

“You were angry and upset? You took my child away from me. You made me sound like I neglected Blaine in court, and you’re the one that’s angry? You know damn well the only reason you got sole custody is because I can’t afford a proper lawyer.”

“I’m sorry,” Bill says, breaking down into sobs. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I want you home.”

Gloria’s shocked. For the last nine months, she’s been living on her own, getting used to the idea of being a divorcee. The paperwork hasn’t gone through yet, but in her mind, the decision is final. She can’t live with a man who is always pushing her around and never respects her opinion.

“I’ve been blaming you for the reason Blaine’s not doing well, and that’s not fair,” Bill explains. “I love you, I’ve always loved you. I never wanted to divorce you, but I didn’t know how else to help Blaine.”

“Well taking his mother away was never going to help him,” she says, her voice harsh and cold.

“I thought if I could just separate you two for a little bit while Blaine got used to being mainstreamed full-time, that I could ensure he was successful. But…” Bill trails off with a shrug.

“But let me guess, he’s not doing so well?”

“He’s doing horrible,” he cries. “I’m doing horrible. We both just miss you and want you home.”

“I don’t know if I can come home after everything you’ve done. I can’t sleep in the same bed with you and pretend that everything is okay again,” she says.

“Then I’ll sleep in the guest room,” Bill says. “I made a mistake.”

Gloria snorts.

“A huge mistake,” he says. “But I hope, with time you’ll forgive me. You know that I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.”

“I can’t make this decision right now,” Gloria says. “I need some time.”

****

OH MY GOD, Gloria gasps as she walks into the hospital room and sees Blaine lying there for the first time. His sweet little face is covered with bruises. His arm is in a sling. She’s been told that he has several broken ribs, which caused his left lung to puncture. They’ve taken care of all they can for now, and physically, he’s going to be okay. Mentally, Gloria’s not so sure.

She hears Bill swear under his breath. Neither of them had expected this when they’d gotten the phone call that afternoon that Blaine was in the hospital. They’d expected something minor. A concussion, a bruise here and there, they never imagined a school bully could cause so much damage.

I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK THERE, Blaine signs, looking near tears.

“We can talk about it later,” Bill says, and Gloria interprets. She knows that Bill hates it when she does that, but she can’t bring herself to make Blaine struggle to lipread when one of his eyes is swollen shut.

I CAN’T GO BACK, Blaine signs again, bursting into tears.

When they finally go home that night, forced by Blaine to go home and sleep in a real bed, they both stay up half the night crying to each other. Bill finally admits that perhaps sending Blaine to a mainstream school was a bad idea. He’s not 100% convinced that Dalton is the appropriate alternative, not when it’s too far for Blaine to live at home and attend, but he’s ready to admit that the way they’ve been doing things isn’t working.

****

Gloria, Bill, Blaine and Sebastian are sitting around the kitchen table a few weeks later. Blaine’s face is finally starting to heal, but his broken bones need some more time. The doctor had cleared him to return to school last week, but Blaine’s been refusing to go and neither Gloria nor Bill have the heart to make him. Not while they were still trying to figure out what to do themselves.

“Blaine wants me to interpret for him,” Sebastian says to them both, but they all know that the only person at the table that needs anything to be interpreted is Bill. Gloria expects him to protest, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t had the heart to make Blaine voice while he’s still moping around the house like he’ll never be happy again.

“I know that you want to go to Dalton,” Bill says to Blaine. “I also know, that you can’t go back to school here.”

SO THEN WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Blaine asks, while Sebastian interprets.

WE’RE JUST NOT SURE YET, she signs, careful to voice as well for Bill. WE DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH YOU LIVING AWAY FROM HOME.

“And I’m not sure the quality of education at Dalton is going to be what you need,” Bill adds.

YOU MEAN ORAL, Blaine signs, rolling his eyes.

“Yes,” Bill says. “I mean oral. You have your heart set on NYU and I support that 100%. But you aren’t going to get in with your current GPA and it’s a mainstream school. I want to make sure wherever we send you, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.”

ONE THING AT A TIME, Blaine signs, a determined look on his face. I NEED MY GPA TO GO UP TO GET INTO NYU. I CAN’T FOCUS ON MY CLASSES IF I’M ALSO FOCUSING ON LIPREADING AND SPEAKING. LET ME GO TO DALTON. LET ME LEARN THROUGH SIGN SO THAT I CAN CATCH BACK UP TO EVERYONE ELSE. LET ME BE IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT WHERE EVERYONE IS LIKE ME. I’LL CONTINUE GOING TO SPEECH THERAPY AFTER SCHOOL, IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT.

“The thing you don’t understand is that those residential schools don’t have the same expectations as mainstream schools. Your mom and I visited the Ohio School for the Deaf when you were little,” Bill says.

YOU DID? Blaine looks shocked.

“We did. We didn’t send you there, though, because you would be in classes with students who were grade levels behind where they should be,” Bill explains. “There was a senior in high school who was reading at a first grade level. That wasn’t want we wanted for you.”

“Dalton is different,” Sebastian speaks up, stepping out of his interpreter role to join the conversation.

“You don’t know any better,” Bill says. “It’s the only school you’ve ever attended.”

“It’s the only school I’ve ever attended because it’s the best,” Sebastian says. “When I lost my hearing, my parents looked at every single deaf school in this country. They picked Dalton because it has the highest percentage of kids graduating at 18 than any other Deaf school in the US. The amount of kids that leave Dalton reading at a high school level is almost unheard of. More than half of our class will go on to college, which I’m sure you know isn’t common either. I can’t promise you that Blaine will graduate scoring higher than his hearing peers. But he’s going to go to school with people that are highly trained in Deaf education and know what they are doing. If you want Blaine to go to college, I don’t know where else you would possibly send him.”

****

“So Blaine called earlier to tell me has a boyfriend,” Gloria tells Bill when he walks into the kitchen after a long day at work.

“Sebastian?”

“Nope,” she says with a smile. “He says it’s a hearing boy he met at a coffee shop.”

“A hearing boy?” he asks, sounding shocked.

“That’s what he said,” she tells him, loving the way Bill is slowly starting to smile.

“What happened to the boy who only wanted to socialize with deaf kids?” Bill laughs.

Gloria shrugs, “I guess he realized you can’t control who you fall in love with.”

Bill pulls her into his arms and nuzzles her neck. It’s been a long time since they’ve been this happy, but one of the many blessings of Blaine transferring to Dalton, was that it’s given them time to work on their relationship again without the stress of having to constantly worry over Blaine everyday. He comes home on the weekends often enough, so they don’t have to miss him too terribly, but he’s gone during the week and it’s given them a chance to remember why they fell in love in the first place.

“I think this boy will be good for him,” Bill says. “He can help Blaine learn to live in the world again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gloria asks.

“Just that, as great as Dalton has been for him, he’s graduating and moving to New York soon. He’s going to have to get used to being around hearing people again.”

“Let’s not talk about Blaine moving, just yet,” she says. “I’ve still got a few more months before I have to worry about that.”

“Whatever you say, Dear.”

****

“How dare you let that boy talk to me like that,” Bill yells at Blaine, while Gloria bites her tongue and remains seated.

She wants to tell her husband that Kurt was right to storm out of here the way he had, but she won’t. This is Blaine’s battle to fight and it doesn’t look like he needs her to intervene on his behalf anymore. Not by the way he’s holding his head up, rather than staring at the ground like he usually does.

“That boy is my boyfriend,” Blaine says, his speech having gotten more intelligible over the years, but it’s still not great. “And he’s going to be in my life for a long, long time so you’d better show him some respect.”

“I don’t owe him anything after the stunt he just pulled. This is my home and I’m the one that should be respected after all I’ve done for you,” Bill yells.

“All you’ve done for me?” Blaine says, his hands flying fast as he signs along, not that Bill would ever understand it. “What have you ever done for me? You pushed me into speech therapy because you couldn’t deal with the fact that I was different. You preach about how you want people to treat me like I’m normal, but you’ve spent my whole life trying to fix me like I’m broken. I don’t need your pity. I don’t need your interventions. I’m perfect the way I am and Kurt understands that.”

“I just want you to be successful,” Bill says. “Do you honestly think you’re going to get a job when you have to have an interpreter with you everywhere you go. Your mom told me how you started your YouTube channel because you couldn’t get a regular job. Do you think that would have happened if you hadn’t been using sign? If you’d spoken up and used your words like you’ve been taught? If you would just let us get you a cochlear?”

“No!” Blaine yells. “I wouldn’t have had to start my YouTube channel. But you know what? I’m happy that I’m Deaf. Thousands of people around the country look up to me, because I’m Deaf. Did you know that I had a 13 year old girl in Kansas message me the other day and tell me that she took her first music class last week because she saw me playing the violin? That she never knew a Deaf person could play music? I am helping to change lives. I’m inspiring people and I have never been happier. Why can’t you see that.”

“You can’t make a living off of YouTube,” Bill says firmly.

“Watch me,” Blaine says, his voice a dangerous tone that Gloria’s never heard before.

“Blaine,” Bill pleads with him. “Maybe Kurt is fine living in dream land where he’s going to be some successful actor and everything is going to work out wonderfully. But you have to be more realistic than that. The world isn’t made for an artist, especially not a Deaf one. Do you know how many Marlee Matlin’s there are? One. You have to do whatever you can to try to make yourself more marketable.”

“You know what, I’m done,” Blaine says. “I could sit here and explain that Marlee Matlin is not the only successful Deaf entertainer, but you’ll never listen to me. You’ve never listened to me. I’ve spent my life learning to talk better for no other reason but to make you happy. To make you proud. I didn’t do it for me. I’m not proud of myself when I say a word clearly or put a sentence together in English. I don’t care if the mailman ever understands me. I’ve only ever cared about what you think of me, but I’m done.”

Gloria bites her tongue, knowing that she has to let Blaine say his piece, even if hearing it for the first time is killing her. She’s known how much Blaine hates speech for a long time, but she’s never heard him express how much he’s been looking for Bill’s approval before. She’s proud of him for standing up for himself, but she’s sad that he has to feel this way in his own home.

“Don’t expect me home for Christmas,” Blaine says. “I’m done. I’m done voicing for you, I’m done making accommodations for you so that you don’t have to feel uncomfortable about my deafness. I’m Deaf. This is my life, now. I sign. I never voice. I use interpreters at school. I don’t wear my hearing aids. I’ve never been happier before and you can either be happy for me, or we can continue to have a horrible relationship.”

“Blaine—“

“Goodbye,” Blaine cuts him off before he can say anything more. He walks over to her to give her a hug and a kiss, but then he’s gone. The door slams and she can hear him get into his car and leave.

She looks at Bill, who’s still standing there like he’s been slapped in the face, but isn’t saying a word.

The house is silent as they both stare at each other, unsure what do say after everything that has just occurred.

****

“What are you doing?” Gloria asks, walking into Bill’s office on Christmas Eve. She’s just changed into her pajamas after church and had been waiting for her husband to join her in bed. When he hadn’t, she’d headed downstairs to find him sitting in front of the computer, awkwardly trying to run through the ASL alphabet.

“Nothing,” he says, quickly shutting his laptop. “I was just answering some last minute work emails.”

She moves into the room to sit on her husband’s lap.

“You know, it’s okay to admit you were wrong,” she tells him, playing with the hair at the back of his neck.

“When he told us he wasn’t coming home for Christmas, I didn’t believe him,” he says, resting his head on her chest.

“He’s hurt,” she explains. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still love you. He’d forgive you.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that simple,” Bill says, sadly.

It’s the first Christmas they’ve ever spent alone together, and it feels weird. Even before they’d gotten married and had Blaine, Cooper had always been around. This year, Cooper is busy working and Blaine’s still refusing to come home.

Somehow, it’s had to find anything to celebrate.

****

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Bill says, slamming his book shut. “Why wouldn’t you just sign it in English order?”

“Because it’s not English, Sweetheart,” she says, not unkindly.

“I don’t understand how you picked this up so quickly,” he groans. “I’m never going to be able to talk like this.”

“You will, okay?” she reassures him. “And you don’t have to be perfect. Blaine will appreciate that you’re trying.”

“You haven’t told him I’m learning have you?” Bill shoots her a worried look.

“No,” she says. “But I don’t understand why you haven’t told him yourself.”

“I just want to be able to show him how sorry I am when I finally see him again,” he admits. “And I can’t do that when I can barely put a sentence together properly.”

“You’ll get it soon enough.”

****

I’M SO HAPPY FOR YOU, Gloria signs to Blaine over FaceTime.

It’s close to midnight, Blaine’s time, and she’s already been sent ten different videos of the proposal, each one making her more and more upset that she couldn’t have been there in person to watch her son get engaged to the man of his dreams. She’s currently in the Philippines for a few months, helping her family get back on their feet after a typhoon had destroyed their home.

DID YOU KNOW THAT DAD WAS COMING? Blaine asks, his face so excited, his smile bigger than she’s ever seen before.

HE’S BEEN PRACTICING FOR MONTHS, she laughs.

I CAN’T BELIEVE HE’S LEARNING TO SIGN, Blaine signs. I DIDN’T THINK HE EVER WOULD.

WELL HE CARES ABOUT YOU VERY MUCH, HE ALWAYS HAS, she explains. HE’S ONLY EVER WANTED THE BEST FOR YOU. I THINK HE’S JUST FINALLY REALIZED THAT THERE ISN’T ONLY ONE WAY TO BE HAPPY.

They stay on the line for a few more minutes. She updates Blaine on everything that is going on with the family, and he tells her every detail of the proposal. Even though she’s already seen the video, it’s nice to see the look of surprise and joy on his face as he walks her though it step by step. Then Kurt’s in the frame telling her very kindly, that while he loves her, he hasn’t had a moment alone with his fiancé since they’d gotten engaged.

She takes the hint and wishes them a good night. As soon as the call is ended, she picks up the phone and dials Bill.

“Hello?” he answers the phone, with a yawn. She wonders if she’s woken him up, but when she hears Cooper and his wife laughing in the background, she knows she hasn’t.

“Hey, Sweetheart. How did it go?” she asks, wanting to hear his side of the story.

“Really well,” he says. “I’ve just really, really missed him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I told him I was really sorry for everything I put him through when he was little and that I want to be part of his life again,” he explains.

“And what did he say?” she asks, curious. She already knows that Blaine wasn’t upset about Bill showing up, but he hadn’t given her many specifics on what they’d talked about.

“He said he forgives me,” Bill says, and he can tell he’s getting teary eyed, even through the phone. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have two people excuse my monumental mistakes in my life, and I’m still not sure why.”

“Because we both love you dearly,” she says. She tries not to think about the dark times in their marriage when she’d been so sure they weren’t going to make it. “Even if you’re a little pig headed sometimes.”

“I love you, Gloria,” he says.

“I love you, too.”

“And thank you,” he adds.

“For what?”

“For raising an amazing son, even when I fought against you.”

“The fact that he’s an amazing kid has just as much to do with you, as it does with me. Don’t you forget that. You’re his father and though you’ve made some mistakes along the way, you’ve done so much more for him than anybody will ever know. The kid that stood up to you at Thanksgiving all those years ago? That strength and determination was all you.”

“Yeah,” Bill laughs. “Yeah,” he repeats himself, this time much more somberly. 

The two of them spend the next few hours reminiscing about all the ignorant people they’ve had to deal with over the years, and how each time, Bill never once let anybody get away with treating Blaine as anything less than the amazing kid he is. The times he’s yelled at insurance companies for refusing to pay for hearing aids. The times he’s told off waitresses for bringing Braille menus. The times he’s fought tooth and nail for Blaine to be allowed to take violin classes at school. He might not have understood what it truly meant to be culturally Deaf, but he’s always understood how to have pride in his son.

And that’s the reason why Gloria forgave him all those years ago, and it’s the same reason she knows Blaine has forgiven him now. Bill’s only ever wanted what was best for his son.


End file.
